A Service Oriented Architecture Approach for Global Positioning System Quality of Service Monitoring

This research focuses on the development of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for monitoring the Global Positioning System (GPS) Standard Positioning Service (SPS) in near real time utilizing a Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS) technique. A unique approach to developing the MCS SOA was developed that utilized both the Depart- ment of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) and the SOA Modeling Language (SoaML) guidance. The combination of these two frameworks resulted in generation of all the architecture products required to evaluate the SOA through the use of Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) techniques. Ultimately this research provides a feasibility analysis for utilization of mobile distributed sensors to provide situational awareness of the GPS Quality of Service (QoS). First this research provides justification for development of a new monitoring architecture and defines the scope of the SOA. Then an exploration of current SOA, MBSE, and Geospatial System Information (GIS) research was conducted. Next a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) of the MCS participant interactions was developed and simulated within AGI\u27s Systems Toolkit. The architecture performance analysis was executed using a GIS software package known as ArcMap. Finally, this research concludes with a suitability analysis of the proposed architecture for detecting sources of GPS interference within an Area of Interest (AoI)

A Decision Support System for the Optimization of Electric Car Sharing Stations

Electric car sharing is a mobility alternative addressing the world’s growing need for sustainability and allowing to reduce pollution, traffic congestion, and shortage of parking in cities. The positioning and sizing of car sharing stations are critical success factors for reaching many potential users. This represents a multi-dimensional challenge that requires decision makers to address the conflicting goals of fulfilling demands and maximizing profit. To provide decision support in anticipating optimal locations and to further achieve profitability, an optimization model in accordance to design science research principles is developed. The integration of the model into a decision support system (DSS) enables easy operability by providing a graphical user interface that helps the user import, edit, export, and visualize data. Solutions are illustrated, discussed, and evaluated using San Francisco as an application example. Results demonstrate the applicability of the DSS and indicate that profitable operation of electric car sharing is possible

Business Strategy in E-bussiness environment

E-business is heralding what is being called “the new economy.” To help managers negotiate this new business landscape, this article review the business and technologies requirements of modern extended organizations and discuss how adaptive business objects and controlled interoperability are the key enabling technologies to the challenge of integrated value chains. We know unlike previous decades where enterprises prized independence, the next decade will be one of business alliances and competing, end-to-end value chains. Enterprise value chains comprised of powerful business alliance partners will exceedingly compete as single entities for customers. Such extended corporations reach out not only with business relationships; they must integrate their value business processes and information systems to realize their business goal

Army-NASA aircrew/aircraft integration program (A3I) software detailed design document, phase 3

The capabilities and design approach of the MIDAS (Man-machine Integration Design and Analysis System) computer-aided engineering (CAE) workstation under development by the Army-NASA Aircrew/Aircraft Integration Program is detailed. This workstation uses graphic, symbolic, and numeric prototyping tools and human performance models as part of an integrated design/analysis environment for crewstation human engineering. Developed incrementally, the requirements and design for Phase 3 (Dec. 1987 to Jun. 1989) are described. Software tools/models developed or significantly modified during this phase included: an interactive 3-D graphic cockpit design editor; multiple-perspective graphic views to observe simulation scenarios; symbolic methods to model the mission decomposition, equipment functions, pilot tasking and loading, as well as control the simulation; a 3-D dynamic anthropometric model; an intermachine communications package; and a training assessment component. These components were successfully used during Phase 3 to demonstrate the complex interactions and human engineering findings involved with a proposed cockpit communications design change in a simulated AH-64A Apache helicopter/mission that maps to empirical data from a similar study and AH-1 Cobra flight test

Proceedings of the Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC) 2011

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2011 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference(SPARC). It includes papers from PhD students in the arts and social sciences, business, computing, science and engineering, education, environment, built environment and health sciences. Contributions from Salford researchers are published here alongside papers from students at the Universities of Anglia Ruskin, Birmingham City, Chester,De Montfort, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Manchester

Developing Maker Economies in Post-Industrial Cities: Applying Commons Based Peer Production to Mycelium Biomaterials

Our current system of research and production is no longer suitable for solving the problems we face today. As climate change threatens our cities and livelihoods, the global economic system preys on the weak. A more responsive, equitable, and resilient system needs to be implemented. Our post industrial cities are both products and victims of the boom-bust economies employed for the last few centuries. While some communities have survived by converting to retail and services based economies, others have not been so fortunate and have become run-down husks of their former bustling selves. The key to revitalizing these cities is to create new industries that empower people, unlike the service economies that deride and devalue them. Peer to Peer (P2P) development models like open source software communities create platforms for people to collaborate on projects and share resources. On the scale of cities, the goal is to stimulate the growth of closed loop, local, micro-economies that are inherently more stable than traditional, centralized economic models.Commons Based Peer Production (CBPP) is a term coined by Professor Yochai Benkler at Harvard Law School. It describes a new model of socio-economic production in which the labor of large numbers of people is coordinated (usually with the aid of the Internet) mostly without traditional hierarchical organization. It is based on low thresholds for participation, freely available modular tasks, and community verification of quality (peer governance). CBPP usually only applies to intellectual output, from software to libraries of quantitative data to human-readable documents (manuals, books, encyclopedias, reviews, blogs, periodicals, and more); however, this system can be adapted for physical manufacturing. A P2P system of development for material goods must be explored through the production of a common resource. Mycelium is the “roots” of fungi. It can be grown anywhere with agricultural refuse as a substrate. It has properties that make it ideal for building insulation and it is environmentally innocuous. It is Cradle to Cradle certified, and it requires little specialized equipment to produce. As a consumer product, it has had trouble gaining traction in a notoriously stubborn market dominated by hydrocarbon based market leaders like extruded polystyrene (XPS). Mycelium products are ripe for development as a regenerative building material. The goal is to increase the R-value of the material, decrease the cost of manufacturing, and carve out a market for this extraordinary product. The purpose of applying a CBPP approach is to increase the speed of development and aid in market penetration. The strategy is to decentralize manufacturing of and experimentation with the product. This requires a robust network of production nodes. Essentially, this involves setting up franchises in select markets (like the Pioneer Valley), where there is a strong interest in local, sustainable products. The nodes would be small cooperative businesses that are licensed to produce the material as well as collect data on the manufacturing and performance of mycelium insulation. The data will then be used to improve the production process. The bulk of the thesis is in designing one such node in Greenfield, MA, located adjacent to the new John W. Olver Transit Center on Bank Row St

SwitchWare: Accelerating Network Evolution (White Paper)

We propose the development of a set of software technologies ( SwitchWare ) which will enable rapid development and deployment of new network services. The key insight is that by making the basic network service selectable on a per user (or even per packet) basis, the need for formal standardization is eliminated. Additionally, by making the basic network service programmable, the deployment times, today constrained by capital funding limitations, are tremendously reduced (to the order of software distribution times). Finally, by constructing an advanced, robust programming environment, even the service development time can be reduced. A SwitchWare switch consists of input and output ports controlled by a software-programmable element; programs are contained in sequences of messages sent to the SwitchWare switch\u27s input ports, which interpret the messages as programs. We call these Switchlets . This accelerates the pace of network evolution, as evolving user needs can be immediately reflected in the network infrastructure. Immediate reconfigurability enhances the adaptability of the network infrastructure in the face of unexpected situations. We call a network built from SwitchWare switches an active network